


Together

by Jodygoroar



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: 05x05, Angst, Cannon compliant, Canon Divergent, Canon Related, F/M, Pain, Seperation, shifting sands
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-24
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2019-05-13 09:09:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14745965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jodygoroar/pseuds/Jodygoroar
Summary: Requested by @onlyhereforbellarke on Tumblr."Clarke decides to leave to try and protect Madi from Octavia and Bellamy confronts her to get her to stay. He brings up “Together?” somehow. Maybe he says with a hurt voice, “I thought we were in this together.” Clarke replies by saying “you don’t need me anymore, Bellamy. You became the leader I always hoped you’d be.” Her voice should break there. He fights her on this. Clarke pushes that now she needs to protect Madi. Bellamy says he can’t do this without her and starts to put his hands on her. Clarke brushes him off softly and says, without looking at him, “you’ve got Echo now. You’ll be fine.” She starts to walk away and Bellamy follows with a “Clarke, wait. Please! I can’t… I can’t loose you again.”Maybe Clarke responds with a shrug, voice shaky and heartbroken as she says “I was never yours to loose, Bellamy.”"





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [onlyhereforbellarke](https://archiveofourown.org/users/onlyhereforbellarke/gifts).



“Come on, Madi, it’s time to go,” Clarke slung her pack over her shoulder and gestured with her head away from the group huddled around the campfire.

Octavia, Indra, Miller, and the others spoke softly among themselves, idle conversations in both English and Trigedasleng rumbling through the silent evening.

Madi looked back at her, confused, hurt, but with an unquestioning loyalty built from their six years of survival together. She would follow Clarke anywhere.

His voice broke through the quiet evening noise, rough and painfully familiar, “Clarke.”

She’d begun to think she would never hear that sound again. The deep caress of his lips along the letters of her name tore through her heart, ripping her soul to shreds as it soothed her aching nerves. It was agony to leave him, to leave them all, but she had different priorities now. Clarke was a far different person than she had been six years ago, Madi was everything that mattered, and she was in danger here.

Octavia had changed as well; she was someone new and terrifying. She was a fierce leader of Wonkru; she had kept most of them alive, and united. She had created a sense of community between the previously warring clans in a relatively short time, but it had changed her. By Clarke’s own words, Madi had come to idolize Octavia, Skairipa; now she saw just how dangerous that could be, for both of them. She couldn’t allow Madi to fall into Bloodreina’s growing web of war.

But here he was, staring at her, lost and hurt, silently begging her to stay. “Clarke…” she knew he couldn’t find the words, but it didn’t matter, she knew what he wanted to say, what he couldn’t bear to say.

“I have to get Madi away from this,” she said.

“We’ll protect her, nothing will happen,” he said, his voice growing so quiet she had to step closer to hear him over the crackle of the fire. “We can get through this together… like we always have.”

“Madi needs me, Bellamy, you don’t need me anymore,” her voice breaks and she stubbornly clears her throat, willing her words to be as strong as she was pretending to be.  
“You’ve become the leader I always knew you could be,” Clarke tried to laugh at herself, it sounded like the pathetic sob she felt rising in her chest. She needed to get away before it was too late and she did something she would regret.

Steeling herself against the look in his eyes she said, “You’ve got Echo now…”

Like a flash she was standing side by side with Bellamy outside Arkadia, their people trudging home from the Hell that had been Mount Weather. Bellamy stared at her with the same hurt and desperation he had in that moment, the sun rising behind her, glinting like stardust in the brown of his eyes, every single freckle across his cheeks there for her to memorize. He tilted his head to the side so slightly that if she hadn’t seen it before, hadn’t dreamed it a million times, wondering if he were even still alive, she would have missed it.

He sighed heavily, accepting the fact that he couldn’t change her mind, knowing it was no use at this moment to try and keep her beside him. “Where are you gonna go?”  
Tears burned at the backs of her eyes, but she smiled despite her heart shattering into a million pieces, “I don’t know.”

Bellamy hesitated a split second before he stepped closer. Placing his hands firmly on her upper arms, he pulled her frozen body forward. Clarke stumbled, falling against his solid chest and into his open arms. Pressing her against his body, Bellamy squeezed her so tightly it would have been painful if she didn’t think it was the only thing keeping her from exploding into a thousand razor sharp shards. Clarke’s hands found their way to his lower back, digging into the rough fabric of his jacket, holding herself up with the strength of his body.

His breath fluttered the delicate golden hairs behind her ear, hot against her skin, it sent chills down her spine, “I can’t lose you again.”

A single burning tear slipped from her eyes, Clarke gave him a final hug and pulled away. “I’m not yours to lose anymore,” she whispered and turned abruptly away.

She reached a hand out that Madi immediately took. Squeezing her fingers tightly around Clarke’s, Madi looked back over her shoulder at Bellamy. He watched them walk away; his cheeks damp with tears that Clarke had not seen, his shoulders slumped under the weight of the charred world around him.


	2. Part Two

Madi stomped along in silence beside Clarke until the light of Skairipa’s fire had long disappeared behind them. She glanced out of the corner of her eye at Clarke and spotted the tears that fell stubbornly down her cheeks. Clarke had stopped trying to wipe them away; there was no use, they just kept coming.

It broke Madi’s heart to see Clarke this way; she had always been so strong, so invincible. Even during the long years of radio silence from The Ring, Clarke had never let her armor crack like this, never let Madi see just how hopeless she could become. Only over the long years together had Madi learned how to see between the hardened plates of steel Clarke had built around her love for Bellamy.

Finally, her curiosity got the better of her, “Where are we going, Clarke?”

Clarke sighed heavily, dragging her mind out of her trail of depressing thoughts. “We’re going to camp outside Polis tonight,” she answered, finally looking at Madi. Clarke forced a smile, trying to reassure her young nightblood.

Madi cast her eyes down, watching the dust kicked up around her toes as they continued to walk. She measured her next thoughts carefully before speaking. “Why did we leave the others?”

She knew it was one question Clarke wasn’t ready to explain to her, but the only other thought slamming through her mind was, _Bellamy didn’t want you to go._

Clarke kept walking, her mind reeling with how to answer Madi’s question. They had agreed years ago not to lie to one another; when you only had one other person in the world honesty was easy and important. It wasn’t so easy anymore, and this was a complicated answer to try and explain.

“Clarke,” the distance of Madi’s voice finally halted her in her tracks. Madi had stopped several paces ago and stood about ten feet away, staring at Clarke. Her eyes were wide, pleading, she needed to know, to understand.

Walking back to her, Clarke bent down, one knee in the sand, her eyes staring up into Madi’s face. She sighed, the truth was her best course of action.

“It wasn’t safe to stay,” Clarke said, taking Madi’s cool fingers in her own.

“But why?” Madi pressed, “Why is it safer to leave?”

“Madi, you’re the most important thing to me, you’re my responsibility, and I’ve always done what I thought was best for you. You know that right?”

Madi nodded softly, but the question in her young eyes didn’t fade.

“We promised to be honest with each other didn’t we?” Clarke said, her head dropping low.

“Always,” came the familiar reply.

Clarke stood once more, taking Madi’s hand more firmly in her own. She continued walking.

“Octavia isn’t the person I remember; she isn’t the person I told you about. Six long years in the bunker has changed her,” Clarke explained. “She scares me. I’m afraid of what she’s willing to sacrifice to win. Who she’s willing to sacrifice. And I’m not going to put you in a position to be a pawn in her war games.”

They carried on in silence after that, Madi's heart aching, guilt rising in her. It was because Clarke wanted to protect her that she thought she had to leave Bellamy behind. Madi wanted to run back to the camp and beg Bellamy to come with them. She would scream at anyone who tried to stop her. If there was only one thing in the world Madi knew deep in her heart, it was that Bellamy and Clarke belonged together. They had already waited so long and missed so much time; it hurt to be another reason they couldn’t be together.

…

Bellamy’s feet were rooted in the sand; he hadn’t moved from where she left him. He’d watched her walk away until she disappeared into the darkness of the night, and even then he couldn’t seem to move. His feet were made of stone, and his aching body was too weak to lift them. The tears fell silently down his cheeks, dampening the collar of his shirt.

After a long while, he felt her come up beside him, she stood in quiet solidarity a while before speaking. “What are you waiting for?”

Bellamy turned numbly and looked into Echo’s beautiful face. He could read it plainly in her eyes. Shaking his head, Bellamy roughly scrubbed a hand down his face, smudging dirt and half dried tears across his cheeks.

“You said nothing would change when we got back to the ground, but everything has changed,” her voice was strong. He had come to rely on her strength on The Ring, he’d been strong for so long and when he had nothing left he had fallen into her with an ease that had frightened him.

His voice was weak, “nothing has-“

“Everything has changed,” she interrupted, emphasizing the words. “It was different from the second Madi said her name, I saw it in your face.”

Bellamy’s chest caved under the weight of the choice she was giving him, though it was no choice at all, and they both knew it. He had to go after her; it was a need as critical to his survival as breathing. It was in that moment that he saw his pack laying at her feet. While he had been standing there watching his world fall apart all over again, Echo had seen what he needed and packed his gear.

“Go after her, Bellamy,” she told him, “she needs you.” Without another word Echo turned and walked away. Bellamy watched the other woman he loved walk away into the night.

He spotted Raven watching from her perch outside the ring of people at the fire. Silently he begged her for guidance, _what do I do?_ his eyes said. Raven looked pointedly down at the pack by his feet and back into his eyes. _You know what do to_ her smile said to him, and for the millionth time, Bellamy trusted Raven with everything that mattered. He scooped up his pack, threw it over his shoulder, and found that his feet were no longer anchored in the sand. He took several steps in the direction she had left and briefly turned over his shoulder to find Raven watching him, an approving smile on her face.


End file.
